If you ask the average nine-to-five worker where they would like to be in five or ten years you’d probably hear quite of few of them say that they would love to start their own business. Being your own boss is great, but there are many pitfalls along the way that can bring your dreams to a grinding halt very quickly. Oddly enough, many of the mistakes that are made seem to occur over and over again, with new business owners seemingly unable or unwilling to learn from the mistakes that were made by those who have gone before them. Here are 5 mistakes that seem to always rear their ugly head.
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1. No business plan
Operating a brick and mortar business usually means have a plan in place before you can secure any kind of financing. Online business owners seem to think that doesn’t apply to them, with many of them jumping in feet first with no real goals or strategic plan in place. You have to approach an online business in the same way that you would in the outside world, and that means developing a plan of action. Far too often these plans are ignored and their grand idea falls flat.
2. Doing it alone
It may be the fault of shady online ads encouraging newcomers to start their own business, but many people seem to believe that a new site will simply run on autopilot. It very quickly becomes apparent that the opposite is true and that there is a ton of work to be done if you want a business to succeed. That is usually much more than a single person can handle, which means that it’s a good idea to think about outsourcing some of the tasks that seem to slip through the cracks, such as your brand logo or
website design
. Those little cracks can soon turn into gaping holes that will suck in potential earnings.’